police in the ukrainian capital of peacefully dismantling barricades are moving protestors off the streets traffic through put the mood. among the opposition to the crackdown was underway. jailed a pussy riot members scream peace activists and thousands of others in trouble with the law could soon be set free to see of an amnesty bill penned by president vladimir putin. the n.s.a. apparent invents a new approach to playing games at work and its agents lead a double life among. other fantasy creatures in the online gaming world.

from a studio center here in moscow with just ten ten pm this is r.t. international. police have started dismantling barricades in the center of the crane in capital and moving protesters away from blockaded streets tensions being high for the whole day with reports of an imminent crackdown frequently surfacing. is that. i am here right now in kiev central defender square the essentially the heart of the protest and i personally haven't seen any dismantling going on now and that is not to say that the police aren't doing just that on any other smaller protest walking the streets a little bit further away from the central square been getting the upper hand on the rise here throughout the day largely because of the numerous messages that were saying that the police are coming in and their main aim is to is essentially squash the protests right here in independence square that is not happening right now there is also information coming in from one of the opposition parties were

claiming that the police are currently storming their headquarters again no confirmation of that as well in fact of the minister whether the interior has said that their main aim is to clear out the streets because the city essentially has been paralyzed by traffic jam so what they want to do is to dismantle the blockade and to push the protest on to protesters onto the sidewalks in order to free up the traffic but other than that again according to the ministry of internal affairs they want to keep this peaceful and there's absolutely no plans to squash out the protesters from independence square off these pool scott is also in the ukrainian capital he took a walk around the government quarter and his what he saw happening that. well tensions have been on the increase all day ever since the riot police surrounded independence square which is about two hundred yards to my left hand side you can see the right place or form the blockade to my right hand side whereas to my left

hand side other protesters and tensions right now are on the increase there's a meeting of troian a covert support is taking place not far from here which these protesters to my left hand side think explain and justify the current police presence. a further one hundred fifty yards down the street and you come to another standoff between the police and the protesters now the police on my left side have surrounded one of the protesters camps meaning it's impossible for them to get in and out now at the moment although tensions are clearly high it seems that both sides are keeping calm neither side want to antagonize the situation here or there are tensions with the police to my left and the protesters to my right are clearly very high. who are now the one thing i've noticed as we continue our walk around the governmental quarters of kiev is actually how peaceful everything is although tensions are high police and protesters are facing off to

each other but it's still quite jovial and life does carry on as normal for example just there you've got the standoff between the police and protesters here the shop is open is normal. well as we conclude our walk through the administrative hearts of kiev we've arrived here at a rally that is in support of president. what has really struck me throughout the course of the evening is how civil the situation has been we've been able to walk through blockades established by the police by pro-government supporters and by anti government supporters and we've been able to pass freely through them or maybe the fact we're clearly journalists has something to do with it but it's quite a civil scituate. and i think the hope is on all sides that situation will extend into the evening. when we've heard more from both camps and artie's own experts on this story international affairs analysts and the peace importing the failed

economic deal between ukraine and the e.u. traded their arguments right here with me in the studio. when you were there reporting in kiev what did you make of the way the authorities handled situation you know bill i've been covering ukraine and its politics and its protests for almost a decade now since the so-called orange revolution and never in my life have expected that i'll be breathing pepper and tear gas in the heart of this is that this was the case no one expected such brutal violence from both sides from both the police and the protesters we did see scenes of protesters looking fairly organized in the way they were protesting this week or yes indeed especially the takeover of the city hall building they looked like a very well prepared army because the way there was storming the building this looks like like a hollywood movie they knew what they were doing exactly and i have been i spent several nights in my down on the independence square talking to the people there was a huge part of crowds who were just spreading these these bands ukrainian flag and saying we're appealing here those people i talked with them what they were saying

is we want to live in a country where law is respected where law is observed the laws are proper and find some economists supporting cold water on the aspirations of those people who want integration they say that ukraine's association with the will mean nothing short of an agricultural collapse the virtual destruction of ukraine's current military industry and what's more important ukraine will have nowhere to export its products you are in the heart of europe do you really believe that that. could be the case your opinion is based on. european citizens says well ok nion citizeness needs this european union values are ones where the role of the elite takes precedence over those of democratically elected officials the european union is about institutionalized corruption based in brussels and the excessive regulation that will go about membership balgair of course is an e.u.

member how's it been working for your country tell us the benefits the area has its . seven successful in the european union so we have good results economic in the. social spheres in the. unemployment of course to solve the problem in climate some amaze that bulgarian police station can talking about the european union. is a basket case tomatoes from. a. used to supply all of eastern and central europe with vegetables only twenty years. that's exactly what the politicians were saying to the protesters in kiev central square over the last few days politicians from not just ukraine but elsewhere to have politicians. arriving in my down square from poland. particularly from poland but we also the

german foreign minister festival and the dutch foreign minister to was was also on my down and to have these people troop the color as it were and to support these protests even after the government survived a no confidence motion in the coven rather i find quite extraordinary we were having a bit of fun of this on twitter today and i can only compare it to if sergey lavrov turns up in glasgow and called on london to hear the voices of freedom in scotland and then aligned himself with a group of supporters who are trained by glasgow celtic or glasgow rangers. reports following the developments in the capital on air and online also on our website r.t. dot com you can find the most dramatic photos and videos from the ongoing protests that. tens of thousands of people could see their crimes pardoned under new amnesty proposal by vladimir putin it would mark twenty years since russia adopted its

constitution and is intended to bring the state and its people closer together but in a question of reports. some fresh high profile prisoners as well as so those awaiting trial will be following the passage of this a lot very closely as they along with the twenty five thousand others may see the charges against them dropped the end of their records are wiped clean now this amnesty has been proposed to by the russian president lies human evolution and it also marks the anniversary of adoption russia's passaggio constitution and nine thousand and ninety three when you saw on the amnesty first appeared of course prompted a lot of speculation on who exactly could ban of the out of this upcoming amnesty whether it could be applied to the a members of the punk group pussy riot who are currently serving their two year prison sentence for on charges of holy going to islam or to the thirty greenpeace activists who have just risen the been released

on bail and are awaiting trial in sin petersburg or will it change of the fate of a number of anti kremlin activists who have been a charged weapon citing riots and unrest however it is a quite doubtful whether me how will a fall into this category as the amnesty a does not impact those convicted off various serious crimes and the ones to russia's richest man has been convicted of stealing billions from the state and of course of this falls into the category of a serious crime. a year's worth of quakes of texas in just one month and a large hall thanks to the practice of fracking so you say experience the stages at the forefront of the shale gas revolution in all forms of generating billions in texas result has got to confound i don't want entire communities crack and crumble the support of politicians for the drilling remains i'm shaken. the columns have

shaken so hard it's actually pulled the tram if you look around here rebecca williams is showing me the cracks in her home after a series of earthquakes shook the area she has lived here for almost a decade and had never experienced an earthquake until fracking begin in her neighborhood i never know when the next one's going to hear it i don't sleep at night because they keep me awake at night it seems like a lot of them happened during the wee hours of the morning or in the middle of the night to texas real world commission the local agency that regulates the oil and gas industries trying to calm the residents who use it claims there is no direct link between the recent troubles and fracking injection wells in the area but locals are not convinced it's a lot like living next to a time bomb but there's no timer on it because we aren't being told when the fracking is going to start or what the emergency perps eaters are in place if something does happen and so you're just constantly sitting and waiting and

wondering is today the day is today the day so small a juice with the u.s. geological survey say fracking regularly triggers small earthquakes they foresee an even greater danger from wastewater disposal which involves pumping millions of gallons of water contaminated by chemicals deep underground where experts say it puts pressure on seismic fault and causes them to slip but despite seismologist warnings fracking well ski popping up just a few steps away from private homes and even community water wells nobody knows about any of this until it's too late and if i already have it. even though the government is not concluded studies on how fracking can affect the environment well operations are in full swing here in texas there are thousands of them impossible to miss and it seems no study can get in the industry's way if in fact you're asking the question of whether something could happen to halt shale production the united states i think it is hard. unlikely it is extremely beneficial to the

national economy fracking is being largely responsible for the booming u.s. energy production but maybe like we're back i fear they could be left to pay the price for her every week there is another tremor and another crack in her house she says she can't even sell it and leave the area we would have never moved here if we would have thought that all of this was going to go out and we were going to live in the middle of a wasteland we would have never moved here and now are stack while energy companies are rubbing their hands in the anticipation of gigantic profits from fracking people who live just steps away from gas wells or increasingly fearful about the water that they drink about the land that their homes are standing on and they don't trust the government assessment of the damage from fracking because they say the oil and gas industry will make sure that no conclusive study comes out even if it does come out that it doesn't become a basis for effective regulations in texas i'm going to check on our team. well

let's move the focus now from the u.s. to another country hoping to win big on fracking the u.k. joining me now is pete kennedy he's spokesman for frank free south yorkshire water contamination air pollution and earthquakes is there real proof that this is all linked to fracking well we've seen these problems across the world in a number of different situations such as texas where you've discovered. the scientific there hasn't been any scientific conclusion either way on the issue and the real question is can fucking be proof that stay safe before we start for the grab for sale of gas we really want to consider these issues and. the u.k. government has. sure but the u.k. government has considered the issues it's absolutely adamant that it's safe for people on the environment but don't you trust what the u.k. government has to say. well the cover on which thing you can go in saying that show

just fucking is safe is on the basis that we have the best regulatory regime in the world and it's a regulatory regime that hasn't been tried and tested yet they're essentially making it up as they go along and this is all happening at the same time that the environment agency who will be the regulator for fracking operations in that budget cut by fifteen percent and so they have in the budget while at the same time the having all these new responsibilities placed upon them and there's not any any conclusive evidence of how they're actually going to meet these new responsibilities for you in britain energy prices continue rising on aid seems that the supplies really are under threat now shouldn't country certainly be exploring other ways of getting its energy and if it's got it why not fracking well the country should be considering other ways of getting its energy but we're looking at the autumn statement from the chancellor last thursday where he was cutting the subsidies for renewable energy and also cutting the measures for energy efficiency in people's homes spreading its however and experience which is going to cut it by about a third. so they'll be

a third of the number of people having their homes insulated as they would have been before thursday so on the one hundred saying that we're having an energy crisis looming where we need to desperately get new means of energy production on board but then at the other. taking away the subsidies and the support for people to reduce their energy bills and reduce the need to use it and also obtain it through clean and safe methods but is alternative energy center and the wind power are they really viable alternatives from your point of view. they oh and though cost is rapidly coming down as well it keeps on coming down. so they are coming in line now with nuclear and the question is to the nuclear prices on the contracts the government has signed for new nuclear be much higher than what new renewable sources would be going forward do you really believe your campaign could actually stop fracking or is it just here to stay there's no way you contend

that the tide i think i'll campaign and the other companies around the country and also across the world will be able to bring fucking to a halt i mean there is direct action that people are taking where the companies a find it much too hard to be able to actually complete their operations and also bring it to light with the politicians and raising this to an issue that's going to be so high on the agenda the politicians will have to start taking action on this and not just get some behind the industry pay good to tell you thanks for joining us pete kennedy from fact free south yorkshire live in r t thank you you thank. a group of protesters in bahrain will have to spend the next four years in jail. for reform like the number of those arrested edges closer to the three thousand mark that and other stories.

so the lesson we teach to the world is that the best way to defend yourself is to get yourself a nuclear weapon and of course the biggest culprit of using nuclear weapons and producing nuclear weapons and weapons about struction is my birthday should the united states and i find it absolutely insane that we sit here and talk about iran suppose have nuclear weapons program where you know the united states is producing every kind of weapon under the sun is spending more than every other military on the planet combined and it's involved in more war and more death and more suffering than every other nation combined and yet it's sitting there on a pedestal talking about other nations developing weapons of mass destruction. that we even allow them to do this the first nation that needs to disarm without question is the united states. we can. choose to. choose. choose to stories.

choose. to. america's national security agency is apparently been leading a life in a fantasy world it's been sending its highest level agents into the. only learn going such as world of warcraft. has more revelations center around two games that's world of warcraft and second life these are basically alternative online universes where users can create avatars they can be no elves or trolls the fear that g c h q and the n.s.a. had was that this type of online game could be used to disguise shady activity on the part of terrorist networks or criminal groups which is why they have been

spying on the people playing these games which is basically involves them assuming fantasy identities and jumping in getting stuck and we know that there are a lot of play is online playing these games around forty eight million according to the estimate by x. box live that in fact it seems to have been quite a big operation the cia the f.b.i. and the pentagon even had to reportedly create a special d confliction group in order to stop all the spies from spying on each other or effectively playing one massive washington game of world of warcraft and perhaps the most embarrassing really from what we know from the leaked documents is that none of this buying has led to any successful counterterrorism operations which has led to some suggestions online that it could have all been an elaborate ploy by board employees that t.c. h.q. and the n.s.a. to simply play computer games out work but certainly the n.s.a.

have said that they can't comment on this said that they can't confirm or deny it but it raises questions once again about the online privacy of gamers it doesn't come at a good time either today is the day that facebook. microsoft google and other large tech companies have written an open letter to the u.s. government asking them to dramatically change that surveillance operations so no matter how you spin it it just doesn't look good when you find out that g c h q in the n.s.a. have been found to be playing well of warcraft and john hicks is the editor of x. box magazine he thinks although the n.s.a. has interest in online games is unusual the revelations surprised anyone all that much there are huge number of players and they did and people do spend a lot of time in these games they form kind of lost doing. a range of people as a rich history of people getting married having met in the world of warcraft and that kind of thing. i must confess to being in flux as to how you would actually

track down terrorists and then it's made it's not doesn't really seem like the sort of environment where you could do it we could do that easily the only thing that you could say that they would learn from it would just be to kind of build you know as i said lost in relationships of people seem to think it's all just. people just playing games at work but i think following the you know the scale of the n.s.a. revelations we've had for the snowden files i think it hasn't really come as a surprise to anybody like the fact that you know the n.s.a. is already monitoring social networks and outsourcing that games are also on the list hasn't really surprised anybody and it doesn't seem to be you know putting anybody off. bahrain is thrown another group of activists including minors behind bars bringing the total number of those arrested in december alone to twenty eight protesters say in recent months the government's crackdown has become in sufferable where the bahraini people struggle for reform goes back almost three years now to february two thousand and eleven when four demonstrators were killed as police crushed a rally well less than

a month later the authorities imposed martial law which allowed troops to suppress the dissent by that time the number of those arrested stood at a thousand well that's increased threefold by now but legal and physical pressure on the activists has failed to kill the protest momentum and monarchy reacted by further tightening the screws this year toughening the punishments for those speaking out but as reports this is still unlikely to silence the opposition. it's the arab spring is forgotten revolution nearly three years have gone by since the people of the rain inspired by the ancient unison and egypt goes up against an oppressive regime and demanded reform but their uprising was brutally crushed within a matter of weeks who have published their name in the picture of all the people responsible of the grave human rights violation in my country. starting from the small police officer and minister of interior reaching to the king of bahrain who

is legally responsible of all the human rights violations and sayyid yusuf elmo hafter has been forced to seek refuge in europe because of death threats against him and his family and i gather bahraini activists he criticizes washington and its allies for being quick to condemn crackdowns in some countries while ignoring others oh it's better than the human rights in bahrain and it was said to us it's better than human rights as a diversion or so that's where we are a victims. of their better standard because we live in oil going to last week the global manami dialogue for them pointedly ignored the crackdown u.s. secretary of defense chuck hagel made it clear in his speech that he was more concerned about military matters they want to feel that there are some you are really body are slaves so that's why they don't want anyone to talk about the process of lifting the if they give them crossing are losing oh lord even.

so very much thank you so far according to amnesty international more than a hundred people have been killed and almost three thousand imprisoned in the bahraini protests many more have been tortured in a crackdown if remains a far removed from the world's attention policia r.t. . or any politician to cool. the rest of this autumn says the government's determined to deal with the public discontent in its own way the problem back then is very very sick to understand we have absolute authority that was concentrated in behind family and we need dollars or thirty years to be shared. by the people of floor an inclusive political system that is returning the power to people rule of law was never meant. illegal law compared to the international community to stand

and your own forces biased police and courts that is one party rule so i think is just part of the punishment and part of the throat feels to deposition of the activists not to join them or man that calling for simple rights universal rights of their people to be equal to have dignity to participate in political system and development that is fair with everyone now for some more global headlines this hour a series of blasts in the market killed twenty one deadliest happened when a car bomb went off in a town northeast of baghdad leaving eleven people dead more than twenty were also injured iraqi security forces are struggling to contain a wave of violence that has pushed the number of casualties this year to its highest level since two thousand and eight. french troops are started taking control of checkpoints in the capital of the central african republic because they confiscate weapons from opposing groups and

try to stifle ongoing unrest earlier a shooting broke out near the airport when a number of fighters refused to surrender their arms and taken is reportedly thinking of taking part in the french operation sixteen hundred french soldiers have been deployed in the nation and wrecked on terrorism. to preserve today for the monarchy but the news team and wolf in just over half an hour from now in the meantime tough talk on issues that matter with sophie shevardnadze. just imagine a foreign leaders like alexander lukashenko or vladimir putin just showed up at anti e.u. protests and giri greece are hungry to urge people to leave the e.u. and join up with the eurasian customs union obviously the big media would be on

fire screaming that this is part of an attempt to usurp democracy and steal the country's away some sort of imperialist agenda and you know what they might be right about that but the weird thing is that for some reason the mainstream media isn't talking about foreign politicians speaking to and or possibly agitating protesters in ukraine like speaker of the lithuanian parliament loreto grows in india and e.u. vice president got sick proto c. of h. and former polish pm jaroslav kaczynski he had the european union brassfield is just fine for their politicians to go to foreign countries and fire up protestors to start a pro e.u. revolution but then all their journalist write about is how russia is trying to put pressure on ukraine to not join the e.u. the obvious hypocrisy of this stinks all the way up to moscow but that's just my opinion.

hello welcome to sophie and co i'm so sorry shed are not so chemist o'keefe served as a humorous were weaned but after being destroyed.